The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus.
Each consumption article of an image forming apparatus often has a memory that stores information peculiar to the consumption article. In the image forming apparatus, it is required to initialize and stabilize the conditions of the image forming operation in order to absorb the variation of the consumption article when the consumption article is replaced.
As described in JP H09-185236 A, some conventional image forming apparatus determine whether or not each consumption article is a new article by a value (new/old information) in a prescribed area of a memory provided on the consumption article and changes the operating conditions on the basis of the information peculiar to the consumption article stored into the memory of the consumption article or carries out new article initialization and stabilization of image forming by executing image stabilizing control such as ATDC (Auto Toner Density Control) when determining that the consumption article is a new article. Such an image forming apparatus carries out the new article initialization and stabilization and clarifies the fact that the article is not any longer a new article by rewriting the new/old information in the memory area that represents the newness and does not doubly carry out the new article initialization and stabilization until the consumption article is replaced by another consumption article. The new article information of the conventional consumption article is often written in a once rewritable area (one-time area) of the memory.
In recent years, there has been a growing demand for recycling the consumption articles in consideration of the environment and so on. For example, if a toner cartridge in which the toner has completely been consumed is filled with toner, the cartridge can be reused. However, since mechanical parts like the drive mechanism of the toner feed screw wear out, the quality of an image to be formed gradually deteriorates after repetitive recycling. Because of the operating lives of the mechanical parts, it is desirable to dispose of the toner cartridge that has undergone a specified times of recycling without recycling. As described above, it is desired to manage the times of recycling of the consumption articles.